Demise Of The European Union

Graham Vanbergen

The European Union is now clearly falling apart. Fear and despondency in EU President Jean-Claude Juncker’s words are as plain as day. He has yet again warned against any attempts to even contemplate the undermining of the European Union. “Those who believe that it is time to divide, dismember and divide the EU into national divisions are completely wrong – we will not exist as a single country without the European Union” said Juncker in Maastricht, the Netherlands recently.

In this statement Juncker makes it quite clear that a federalised Europe and, in his own words “a single country” is the end game of this transnational project. This is in direct contradiction to all previous statements on the matter.

“What began as a purely economic union has evolved into an organization spanning policy areas, from climate, environment and health to external relations and security, justice and migration. A name change from the European Economic Community (EEC) to the European Union (EU) in 1993 reflected this. The EU is based on the rule of law: everything it does is founded on treaties, voluntarily and democratically agreed by its member countries. The EU is also governed by the principle of representative democracy, with citizens directly represented at Union level in the European Parliament and Member States represented in the European Council and the Council of the EU. European citizens have an ever-increasing number of channels for taking part in the political process.

The problem is patently clear. The “principle of representative democracy with citizens directly represented at Union level” with policy “voluntarily and democratically agreed” as a statement from the EU Commission is at best comical, but in reality quite absurd and utterly misleading.

The EU effectively abandoned the principle of an economic union, which the majority of citizens supported, with a political union of ‘one country’ as its perceived destiny, which the majority of citizens have emphatically not supported. Hence, the rise of right-wing political parties, trebling in number since the birth of the EU in just 24 years.

A federalised European Union was the pipe dream of Europe’s most evil – Hitler comes to mind; and many European’s have this built into the DNA of their memory. More recently, one only has to look and see what is happening to federalised USA of recent. The principles of democracy no longer exist as the race for the Whitehouse is mired in allegations of bribery, corruption, vote rigging and mass propaganda tactics.

Furthermore, in a cesspool of global deceit emanating from state institutions overrun by lobbyists, the architecture of globalisation more widely is crumbling before our eyes, precisely because ordinary people are not represented, as constantly promised but never delivered by a small group of charlatans masquerading as leaders.

Take for instance the Euro-Army. David Cameron consistently stated that there will not be an EU-Army and backed that up with Britain’s power of veto. This was a just part of the message he espoused throughout the EU referendum campaign leading up to Brexit and his exit. Just five months later MEPs approved a new “Super-Force” to defend Europe, passed by 369 votes to 255, with 70 abstentions. Britain, like it or not, would have to contribute £420million a year to it.

The EU Commission even blamed in part, the people of Britain in its report for the formation of the EU Army. Again, the language exhibits a level of assertion that clearly indicates little more than desperation. “At a time when public support for the EU is being called into question in some Member States, defence and security is an area where the individual and collective benefits of more Europe can be easily demonstrated, especially regarding the likely challenges to EU’s standing as a strategic actor following Brexit.”

Politicians in each of the 28 member states will also be forced, like it or not, to hand over their own defence plans and capabilities to the new EU Army as it probes overall capability and how best to deploy them.

Speaking in Strasborg, MEP Urmas Paet said the army must become a reality “without further delays”. Contrary to David Cameron’s lies and those of many politician’s across Europe who have consistently denied the formation of an EU Army, confirmation emerged that “The plans (for an EU Army) have been in the pipeline for a number of years but have repeatedly been denied by the UK government.”

TTIP is another example. The EU parliament commissioned the largest ever study of public opinion to the trade agreement. A staggering 97% were opposed when asked, and yet, despite millions subsequently protesting, the EU Commission ignores “the principle of representative democracy.” Faced with failure on agreeing the worlds biggest trade deal Juncker confirms to all member states, contrary to EU principles, “We don’t need your consent.”

As it turns out, Trump is against such trade agreements after seeing the catastrophic failure of NAFTA that ended up offshoring 3 million American jobs to Asia, widening the trade gap and reduced desperately needed federal taxes. As inequality is driven towards levels not experienced since the 1920’s, a firebrand, with no political or diplomatic experience is elected out of the anguish and despair of those left behind.

In the meantime, the rise of LePen in France, and Merkel’s frantic attempt to hold on to power in Germany with U-turns over a badly miscalculated immigration policy, exposes the panic that is setting in after the realisation of Brexit and Trump shock wins. Austria very nearly voted for the right-wing Freedom Party, whose first two leaders were former SS officers. What a revelation that would have been.

Reaching a new apex of support each year, the resurgence of nationalism across the 28 nation bloc is becoming so politically charged that mainstream politicians are rapidly lurching to the right. Abandoning original core principles (as quoted above) and replacing tolerance, equality and diversity with prejudice, racism and injustice, which is yet more evidence of the EU dissolving bit-by-bit.

Europe is now witnessing is a dangerous and determined effort by those in power to keep control. It is because citizens are not ‘directly represented at Union level in the European Parliament’ that individuals like Juncker and his supporters are resorting to ever more extreme tactics. In so doing, he exposes the truth behind a project with words, long denied, as they know there would be no support for their eventual plans whatsoever. Hence, the rise of anti-establishment sentiment and extreme political parties to support them. Without major reform to the benefit of the masses, the EU is doomed, a foregone conclusion.

These are the words of a desperate Jean-Claude Juncker prior to taking office – they are the words of defeat.

In the four years since he spoke those words, Juncker has done nothing to soothe the agitated nerves of European citizens. But then previously, Juncker was Prime Minister of Luxembourg from 1995 to 2013, and Minister for Finances from 1989 to 2009, a country now mired in massive financial scandals that he clearly approved of when he was at the helm. Even then he went on to say when gently interrogated by the EU Commission “You should rather say EUleaks rather than Luxleaks – this is not only a phenomena that only happens in Luxembourg.” Another admission of guilt and failure.